The manufacturing plant in Vietnam’s Bac Ninh province, a little way east of Hanoi, has been under construction since 2011. It’s expected to employ up to 10,000 people and produce 45 million phones per quarter, 95% of which will be exported.

Even though Nokia’s market share is negligible in the market for the higher-end smartphones that affluent consumers prefer, it is still the world’s second-largest mobile-phone maker, thanks largely to low-end phones, which make up 90% of its handset sales. As Quartz has reported, it even manages to eke out a small profit on the Nokia 105, which sells for about $20.

The consumers that buy the 105 may be willing to upgrade to Nokia-Microsoft smartphones in the future—Elop, who will continue to run the Nokia phone business for Microsoft when the deal closes next year, has described low-end phones as an “on-ramp to Windows Phone.” Under the terms of Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s handset division, it will have the right to use the Nokia brand on its phones for 10 years.